After the Burn

By Tina von Reese Lokkbakk

In 2010, Tina von Reese Lokkbakk’s life shifted when she finally stood up to her then husband and traveled to Norway with her family for a long-anticipated vacation. While there, her spontaneity returned, she rediscovered laughter, and most importantly, her spirit. When she returned home, Tina soon realized there was no other option but to let go of what once was and embark down a new path without any idea of where it might lead.

In a retelling of her personal journey to healing and rebuilding her life after a high-conflict divorce, Tina candidly chronicles her life and experiences at the end of her marriage and beyond that included heartbreak and a multitude of monumental challenges such as the loss of her child, her reputation, her home, her financial security, her parents, and even her friends. Throughout her story, Tina proves that it is possible to crawl out of the darkness of suffering to find the light of peace and happiness.

After the Burn shares the true story of one woman’s radical journey to awakening after enduring a high-conflict divorce and the estrangement of her teenage daughter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Jan 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781982278410

Tina von Reese Lokkbakk

Tina von Reese Lokkbakk is a recently retired public school teacher whose mission is to help others heal from estrangement through retreats and small groups that focus on writing through grief, connecting to nature, and sharing experiences. Her inspirational blogs on estrangement can be found at lifeafterestrangement.com. Tina currently resides in her childhood mountain home in California.

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Copyright © 2022 Tina von Reese Løkkbakk.

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ISBN: 978-1-9822-7840-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-7841-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021925211

Balboa Press rev. date:   01/28/2022

To Marie and Grace with all my love!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To Marie, you gave me the awareness that I love you unconditionally. It took you and this estrangement to learn to become a better parent and a better version of myself. I am so grateful for every moment we have shared together. I love you always, no matter what!

To Grace, who gave me a reason to keep trying. Thank you for being a ray of sunshine in my life. Just by your mere existence, you shine light into my darkness. I love you always no matter what!

Maria, you have shown me what love, honesty, and trust can feel like; you’ve given me an incredible blessing by being exactly who and how you are. You teach me through actions.

Pam, my therapist, friend, and coach, I don’t have enough words or space to tell you how much I appreciate you. Thank God for you!

Tine, my sister jalapeño cousin, without your big heart and the phone call that changed my life when I had hit my rock bottom, I wouldn’t be here today. Thank you!

To my pea-in-a-pod, Candise Jayne, we have watched each other grow and learn and heal, through our shared tears, the shedding of anger, and being real, 100 percent.

Maite, my colleague and spiritual partner, I smile to be in your presence; you inspire me.

Wei and Parto, thank you for standing beside me, giving me strength, and seeing me.

Hilda, beginning well over twenty years ago, you have been like a guardian angel on my shoulder; time and space between us do not matter.

To my Saturday morning Co-Dependents Anonymous (CoDA) group who taught me honesty and safety for the first time in my life.

George, you are the one man I have let into my life again. You bring fun, adventure, and wisdom to our friendship.

To Marilyn, my childhood friend and fellow Norwegian American who understands my childhood experience like no other.

To each member of my Norwegian family, the love you have shown me gave me the strength and courage to keep going. I love you all! And to John Arild, your life made a difference for so many!

Toni, my chapter says it all.

Sue for inspiring me as my mentor at school and through divorce and for sparking the desire to read in me once again.

To my colleagues, students, and parents at my Spanish immersion school, thank you for everything!

CONTENTS

Introduction

PART 1: Introduction to My Life

Chapter 1     The Bridge

Chapter 2     My Daughter

Chapter 3     Estrangement Is So Hard!

Chapter 4     Finding Laughter in Norway

Chapter 5     The Leper at the Door

Chapter 6     My Grace

Chapter 7     Ally McBeal and Rosa Parks

Chapter 8     Super Glasses

Chapter 9     Earth Day Fair, My Apocalypse

Chapter 10   Snapped … Actually, the First Snap

Chapter 11   Run for Your Life!

Chapter 12   Sixth Grade, My Saving Grace

Chapter 13   Finding Your Heart

Chapter 14   Depression

Chapter 15   The Consequence of Letting Go

Chapter 16   My Grandmother Mormor

Chapter 17   Bestefar and William, the End and the Beginning

Chapter 18   Two Turtles

PART 2: Betrayals

Chapter 19   The Meaningless Document

Chapter 20   Another Kind of Estrangement

Chapter 21   Inspiration from Toni

Chapter 22   Eighteenth Birthday and the Hot Stove

Chapter 23   Commencement Wish Poem

Chapter 24   Graduation Day and Gratitude

Chapter 25   Crazy and the Truth

Chapter 26   Mother’s Day

Chapter 27   There’s No Right Answer

Chapter 28   The Request

Chapter 29   Self-Sellout

Chapter 30   Dreaming of You

Chapter 31   Estrangement and Dominique’s Death

Chapter 32   Burned by Mountain Fire

PART 3: Transitioning and Discovery

Chapter 33   The First Step to Change

Chapter 34   The Concert, and I Am the Ghost

Chapter 35   Boxing Match

Chapter 36   Howdy, God. It’s me, Tina!

Chapter 37   I Am Fighting

Chapter 38   The Email That Changed Everything

Chapter 39   December 21, 2019

PART 4: Healing, Love, and Moving Forward

Chapter 40   I Miss You!

Chapter 41   Cuba and the Taj Mahal

Chapter 42   Freedom

Chapter 43   Parallels

Chapter 44   Lake Maria

Chapter 45   Boundaries

Chapter 46   Badass

Chapter 47   Corona and COVID-19

Chapter 48   Twentieth Birthday

Chapter 49   The Backpack

Chapter 50   Villain

Chapter 51   Mental Health and How to Acquire It

Chapter 52   Rosa Parks Part Two

Chapter 53   Dear Warren

Chapter 54   Healing from Grief

Chapter 55   Parenting Children

Chapter 56   Compassion Leads to Forgiveness

Chapter 57   Suffering/Healing

Chapter 58   The Last Chapter

INTRODUCTION

My life made a shift beginning in 2010. My parents asked me to go on a trip to Norway to spend time with my relatives. I wanted to go more than anything, but I had a husband who wanted me to take the reins away from my parents and hand them over to him, something I just could not and would not do.

My parents were Norwegian immigrants who came to the states in the early ’70s. For many years, we were eligible for government assistance, but my parents’ pride kept them from receiving it. Due to their lack of resources, I had only been to Norway twice during my childhood, once in 1978 at age ten and again as a late teen during college in 1987. There were no other family members in the United States, only my great-uncle whom we visited a few times for Thanksgiving.

On multiple occasions, I mentioned to my husband how much I would like to visit Norway and get to know my family better. He always responded by telling me he wanted to wait to travel there until our daughters were in high school. By waiting, he figured, we could afford to do all of Europe and catch Norway at the tail end of the trip.

I didn’t want my first trip back with my own children to be an add-on to our nuclear family event. I wanted it to be the main attraction. Time was precious and running out. My father was slowing down. While at the same time, my mother was showing some significant signs of dementia. I wasn’t about to wait any longer. Now was the time!

I vividly remember the difficult conversation I had with my husband. Our family was going for the weekend to a mountain resort town in late fall. During the drive with our girls in the backseat, the trip to Norway came up. Warren made it very clear that he did not want to visit with the family the entire time. If we were to go together, then the agreement would be to see tourist destinations. We would stay in accommodations away from the family whenever possible, and he would be allowed to do all the driving with the rental car in his name.

So with great resolve and determination, I rose up to my husband and spoke my truth: Come with us and be part of the Norwegian family or stay home. This vacation is about family and building relationships. I, like my mother and father, wanted to spend time with my family and create deeper connections between us.

For the first time in our relationship, I drew a line in the sand. Should he choose to join us, my parents would make all the decisions, my father would do the driving, and we would focus on family, not tourist destinations. Unless he could agree to those terms, it would be best if he were to stay at home. No matter his choice, I would be going and so would our girls. To make an even stronger point, I reiterated the fact that my parents were the ones to be paying for us all, so it would make all the more sense that they would set the itinerary and not him.

Warren, my now ex-husband, decided to stay home. However, I made it clear that if he were to change his mind and agree to being part of the family, he would still be welcome to come. He remained resolute in his decision, so I prepared passports for myself and our daughters (ages seven and ten at the time). The tension and discomfort within our marriage became quite thick before our monthlong departure in April 2010 and for several months after our return.

Once in Norway, my insomnia disappeared, my spontaneity returned, and I rediscovered laughter. More importantly, I rediscovered my spirit. It had long since left me.

On the return flight back to the States, I wrote in my journal that I would do all I could to save money and return. This would not be the last trip for me or the girls. To make this dream a reality, I would expand my tutoring business in order to increase my monthly stipend. If my husband still had no desire to join us, that was his choice. Planning for the next trip back to Norway is what kept me going instead of settling into a deeper depression.

The strength I found by standing up for myself in spite of my husband’s disapproval and anger gave me the confidence to go back to work after twelve years of staying at home as a full-time mother. Year after year when I went to my husband for his support to continue once again in the work world, I was told I would not be able to handle working while being a mother of two. Sadly, I bought into that belief for nearly a decade.

Life is but a compilation of choices. Every choice, I have discovered, comes with consequences both positive and negative. I made the choice to return to work with no one else’s approval but my own. It felt much like I had just grabbed the flotation device hurled at me from a nearby boat to prevent me from drowning. However, saving myself was ultimately what created the unraveling of my marriage and the estrangement of my eldest daughter.

At the beginning of my legal separation in May 2013, the world came back to me with color. I rediscovered my senses. My former life was like living in a world full of sepia images in muted tones and often in silence.

Once separated, every one of my senses came back to me at a heightened level of experience. I saw colors as vibrant again. Food tasted heavenly, and I felt for the first time that I had the space to breathe, to relax, and to let down my guard.

I remember after a bike ride (a couple of months into the separation), lying down on a bench staring upward into the branches of a gigantic oak. I was mesmerized by each leaf while awestruck by the magnitude of the tree itself. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been so aware of my surroundings and with such a notice to details. Previously, I was merely walking through life narrow sighted, getting through whatever task or problem I had to manage in that moment.

Most days within my marriage I lived with tension and in a continuous state of emergency—everything was seen as a crisis. Although I was hard wired to prefer to see the world as warm and inviting, my husband saw the world as difficult and problematic and therefore must be self-managed in order to survive.

I knew I had to live apart from my spouse to heal and calm my frazzled nerves. There was no room for me to be myself or to simply be. I realized that for our marriage to work, I would have to continue to conform to unspoken rules, remain silent, and be compliant in order to maintain peace in our family environment.

Once I moved out, I was like an animal that had escaped from its cage. There was no possible way I could return. No bribe, no words, nothing could will me back in. To return would mean certain death. I didn’t fully understand what that would look like, but I knew that it would mean the death of my soul. Therapy confirmed this to be true. There was no other option but to let go of what once was and take a new path, having no idea where it may lead.

Before filing for a legal separation, I felt as if I were standing on the edge of a canyon cliff. I looked behind me and saw a herd of stampeding buffalo coming full force in my direction. I had no choice but to jump. The fall was long, and the landing was brutal. I had shattered into a million pieces like Humpty Dumpty. The miracle was, however, that the divorce became finalized, and I was alive! I had given myself the opportunity to find peace, evolve, and move forward. And more importantly, I could model courage to make healthy life choices for my two girls.

My story is to inspire you to know that sometimes listening to your primal instincts (your intuition) is all you need to do to make the right choice for yourself. Overthinking often overrides your intuition and keeps you immobilized with fear as you stand on the canyon ledge despite the angry, snorting stampede of buffalos headed straight for you with dust clouds a mile high mere seconds away.

I will never and have never regretted my decision to leave my marriage. To this day, I breathe relief in having ended it. The decision to divorce was the only decision I could have made to survive. I would do it over again and again, but how I did it I would do differently if I were given the chance.

I am here as proof that it is possible to lose everything—your child, your reputation, your home, your financial security, your parents, even your friends—and still find peace and happiness.

I am alive. I am well, and, best of all, I am thriving. I wish the same for you!

PART 1

INTRODUCTION

TO MY LIFE

CHAPTER 1

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The Bridge

I see a bridge in the jungle spanning a rapid river with cliffs on either side. I’m standing on the south side terrified to cross, not knowing if the bridge is capable of supporting my weight. It wasn’t new, and it wasn’t made from metal. It looked a bit worn with ropes intertwined with vines for handrails.

I’m standing at the bridge alone. Nestled in the forest is my family or what once was. I don’t see my youngest daughter; I don’t know where she is, but I can sense she is safe. My eldest is far away. Again, I don’t see her. I don’t know where she is. I just know she’s there somewhere in the depths of the forest—the jungle.

I look down and see torrents of water rushing underneath far below. The river—it’s beautiful and frightening. As I look across to the other side and look behind me, I conclude both sides are beautiful, and both are scary. To stay is no longer an option. Crossing the bridge is what I must do. There is no longer a fear to cross; the need to go is greater than staying.

Oddly, the fear of death is nonexistent. And by looking at the bridge, I know there are no guarantees I’ll make it to the other side. It doesn’t matter anymore if I do—I simply know I must. I have a leather backpack. That’s it. I begin my journey. One step on the bridge, the other connected to the land, and a hand on either rail. I feel the bridge sway with merely my one foot upon it and only half my weight placed. I’m still alive. I look. I hear the water and birds making calls as they swoop through the air. I look to the other side. All I see is the destination.

I place my other foot on the bridge with confidence. I’m focused on the land before me. I’ve decided that should the bridge collapse, my hold on that rail will support me, and I’ll make it. I know with certainty I will arrive safely, backpack and all. With both feet planted, my fear quickly dissipates and is replaced with determination. This crossing is meant to be. I’m going to take it slowly, not only to play it safe but also because in the midst of all this danger there is so much to take in.

I feel fortunate to be in nature and completely alone and at one with it. I am a small piece within the entire puzzle of my environment. I feel as significant as a small ant, yet I play an important role nonetheless. I move forward in a straight line. I’m following my path with confidence, one footstep at a time until I’ve crossed with only a couple more steps remaining.

I look behind me. There is my ex standing a few, safe feet back from the edge. I see anger, fear, and frustration calling. I hear not a word due to the rush of the water, but I see on his face and by the stance of his body that his words are not filled with loss, love, or yearning however much I wish they were. I let so many years slip by hoping that they would come.

My reality is the same on either side of that bridge—I will be alone. I will feel sadness and emptiness for the love that can’t be given to me unconditionally. As I turn my torso to look at the man I loved so much, whose love I wanted to feel and waited patiently to receive, I know that more effort and time spent loving him will only net the same results. If love is what I want, then I will have to find it elsewhere. And even if it is never to be found, that would be all right too. At least now, on this side of the bridge, there is hope and freedom to believe in possibilities.

The closer I come to the end of the bridge, the more I feel, hear, see, and smell. My senses throughout the years had become dormant and dull, like a tree in winter. After losing its leaves to the earth, the tree focuses inwardly on its core in order to remain alive and endure a difficult, cold season.

My daughters were the ones who kept me warm and alive in my core during my winter. They were the flame in the ever-burning candle in church. They provided enough light and warmth to keep me cooking, cleaning, living, and loving. They were my focus to keep me moving forward in life one step at a time.

With a gut-wrenching sadness, I turn away from my soon-to-be ex-husband and prepare to take my final steps off of the bridge. After having exhausted every possibility to save, nurture, and nourish a marriage I so desperately wanted to keep, I know beyond a doubt there are only two choices remaining—accept what was and all its limitations or take a chance with my remaining life to see what lies on the other side of the bridge. The choices are death or life. I want to live because I have slowly been dying.

My daughters made choices too. My eldest made it clear that she would not follow. Instead, she hid as far back in the forest shelter as she could. My youngest was busy learning how to build her own bridge to connect and have access to both sides of the river on her own terms. My husband didn’t yell or fight for my return. He stayed silent and chose to remain standing in the same place I had left him. Once I was out of sight, he retreated to live with my oldest daughter.

I reach into my shorts pocket and pull out an olive-green grenade. As I continue walking forward, I pull the pin, and without looking back, I throw the grenade. I hear it land on the bridge and explode. There is no going back. There is no looking back. My old life is so totally over.

CHAPTER 2

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My Daughter

I have two daughters, actually. My first, Marie, is now seventeen and a senior in high school, and my baby, Grace, is fourteen and in ninth grade. I’ve often wondered if it would have been easier to face the death of my eldest daughter than to accept that she lives only one and a half miles from me with absolutely no contact between us. The pain is searing at times, and today was no exception.

This morning, like most days while I bike to work, I repeat my mantra, I belong here too. I’m claiming my space, as I pedal through the high school campus where my ex-husband teaches and my eldest daughter is in attendance.

I tell myself as I enter another loop in my brain about my marriage and the loss of my daughter, Tina, just focus on the present. Think about how much you love biking to work and teaching. Remember your former students are here at this high school—students who enjoyed you and students you enjoyed. This isn’t enemy territory. It’s simply territory!

But today … Today was different. As I biked over the pedestrian crossing, I looked over at my daughter. I didn’t recognize her at first. Her long, beautiful, thick, dark blonde hair was up in a knot at the top of her head. She had probably just thrown on her sweatshirt in a haste, pulled on some pants and boots at the last minute, and headed out the front door—what was once our front door. I’ve seen pictures of her occasionally, and she always looks stunning. But at that moment while passing the pedestrian crossing, she was simply a regular teenage girl making her way to school.

I didn’t say a word as I pedaled. My first thought was, Is it her? My second was, Should I stop? No. I’ll simply ruin her day. Plus, she’s with a friend. And last, what do you say to your daughter whom you’ve only seen once in two and a half years? So, I kept going. As soon as I passed, I wanted to turn around. I wanted to do something different. I didn’t want to keep hiding. After all, she is my daughter.

I love that child! I always will, no matter what. But that love is no longer on my sleeve for all to see. It is buried. My love for her is buried in a premature grave. It is buried in the walls of my soul surrounded with gates, moats, blankets, anything to protect my heart from breaking wide open.

Pain burned my neck. It’s that pain at the sight of her that makes me want to pack up and move to a foreign country or join the peace corps—pain because I have lost my daughter. The pain is unbearable and unfathomable at times. I’m often left speechless at my loss, her loss, our loss.

Within one block, I felt regret. Sadly, I didn’t take this opportunity to do something different and face my daughter head-on. At the same time, what do I do with someone I no longer understand and who no longer wishes to even look at me? Yet, I love that sweet girl with the gorgeous hair in that casual green sweatshirt. I love her more than she can comprehend.

I pedaled away shaking, swallowing back tears and focusing on the appointment I was going to make with Pam (my very loved and appreciated therapist) later that afternoon. I made it to work, the place where I forget my past and focus on my sweet students before me, a reprieve from the trauma I experienced a few short minutes ago.

CHAPTER 3

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Estrangement Is So Hard!

My name is Tina. I could describe myself in all the right pigeon holes, but I won’t. I am not any of these things, but I am all my things. I never knew that I even liked to write until a little over a year ago. My heart was so broken I had no other means for escape. Drinking stopped working, cigar smoking stopped working, and I’m not willing to go down the path of drugs. I don’t particularly like shopping. I am anything but an athlete. If anything, my vice or form of escape these days is how to grow spiritually through Super Soul Sunday episodes with Oprah, books like Rising Strong by Brené Brown, and therapy. It’s nine in the morning, and I’ve been reading and gleaning from others relentlessly for a little over a year now. I’ve come to learn it’s time to synthesize and come up with my own expression of what all this information I’ve taken in means. Perhaps you’re wondering why I write. I’ll get to the heart of it now, directly. I’ve been estranged from my now-eighteen-year-old daughter for three-and-a-half years.

It’s been six years this May since I left my marriage. Had I stayed, I would not have lasted on this earth much longer—not due to the hands of my now ex but due to the powerlessness I felt I had in that relationship. I lost my happy. I lost myself. I will not blame him any longer, and I will not blame me or my upbringing. I simply lived my life not realizing I could say no or that I had control and decision-making capabilities right there in my hands. It took leaving, time, and soul-searching to arrive at this conclusion. And frankly, this has been a gift that has come at the loss of my daughter.

The recovery from my loss, which I’m still learning to do, has been my dark night of the soul, but I can’t say either that this has been an entirely horrific experience. I’m trying to look at my daughter as my greatest teacher. From this experience, I’m hell-bent to make the most of my life while I’m here to live it. I hope someday (if she and I never reconnect) to erect a figurative Taj Mahal in honor of our love and our loss. The two lessons from Marie’s indirect teachings are that I’ve come to experience gratitude for the relationship I do have with my youngest daughter, Grace, who is soon to be sixteen, and the awareness that there is something more to me and life than being a parent. Being a parent was all that really mattered to me until this loss came about. I thought that life wasn’t worth living if I wasn’t a parent because I felt I had no other purpose.

The climb up to reach this realization has been as arduous emotionally for me as a trek to the top of Mount Everest. There have been times I truly thought I was going to die. Yet, with each step forward, I learned something new that helped me adapt to my environment. As I pause and look back at the top of each mini-precipice, I become more acutely aware that I am surviving this incredibly difficult journey. Every time I survive a perilous fall, I become just a little bit stronger and